Charles Patton

Charles Patton, Ph.D. is a principal scientist in SRI International's Center for Technology in Learning. For the past two decades, Patton has been at the forefront of research, design, and commercialization of enabling technologies for mathematics teaching, learning, and exploration. As a lead designer at Hewlett-Packard, Patton pioneered the concept of handheld symbolic/graphical/numeric computation with contributions ranging from LISP systems to interactive symbolic manipulation, infrared communications, and coauthoring NSF-sponsored calculus reform texts. With Texas Instruments, Patton pioneered the concept of the wireless networked classroom, researching the combination of innovative technology approaches to low-cost, low-power communications with high-impact use models in learning.

At SRI, Patton has continued and extended this work, including mathematization of the curriculum through engagement with data; exploration and development of systematic approaches to building innovation capacity—in classrooms (with his GroupScribbles invention), with teachers and administrators, and in virtual worlds; with redefinition of math textbooks as interactive, digital, adaptable, and coherent (iDAC) resources in the context of middle school math and teacher education.

Patton has an M.A. and a Ph.D. in mathematics from Stony Brook University.

Publications